Fifty years ago, in a store front in downtown Fort Lauderdale, Nova Southeastern University’s founders envisioned a world-class doctoral teaching institution for the citizens of Broward County, Florida. From its initial class of 17 doctoral students, NSU has grown to nearly 27,000 students and more than 162,000 alumni around the world.

You can read more about the 50th Anniversary and see Faculty, Staff, Alumni and Student Stories, Photos, and Events here. To see a collection of governmental Proclamations honoring Nova Southeastern University's 50th anniversary, go here. In addition, to view historical photographs from the NSU Archives you can click here.

From humble beginnings, lofty dreams, and an initial class of 17 doctoral students in South Florida in the early 1960s, Nova Southeastern University (NSU) has grown into a comprehensive, high research-rated university of nearly 27,000 students from around the world.

Nova Southeastern University is a flourishing university with a fascinating past. Arising from the shared dream of local community businessmen in Broward County, Florida, the university was chartered in 1964. At the time, it had no buildings to its name--just an empty plot of land and a dedicated group of visionary advocates.

On the fiftieth anniversary of NSU’s founding, this book tells the amazing story of what is now one of the largest not-for-profit universities in the United States. Today, Nova Southeastern University serves more than 27,000 students and has produced more than 150,000 alumni. Its main campus in Fort Lauderdale is beautifully landscaped, with modern classroom buildings, an array of student housing options, state-of-the-art athletic facilities, and a unique joint-use library, the largest library building in the state of Florida. Through distance-learning and travel study programs, NSU’s presence extends throughout the United States and around the world.

Using interviews with present and past NSU presidents, faculty, administrators, staff, students, and even NSU’s original founders, award-winning historian Dr. Julian Pleasants provides an insider's view of the story behind the school. He re-creates the scene of a meeting one night in the 1960s when local businessman Jack Hines pounded on a dining room table and said, "We've just got to have a university." Against all odds, they succeeded. Dr. Pleasants describes the arrival of NSU's very first graduate students, reveals the internal conflicts that challenged the school’s program development, and related the frightening brush with bankruptcy that threatened to close the doors of the young university forever.

The personal testimonies are backed by a wealth of primary sources, including board of trustees minutes, unpublished manuscripts, administrative documents, and presidential papers from the NSU archives. Rare photographs offer a glimpse into the early history, culture, and architecture of the university. The Making of Nova Southeastern University shows how this unique school overcame tremendous odds in just five decades to become an innovative leader in higher education and ushers in NSU’s next fifty years of growth and creativity.

Twenty-five years in the life of a university is a short period of time. Yet, in its first twenty-five years, Nova University has been able to respond to major changes in American society. After Sputnik was launched in 1957, our government and our educational system placed a high priority on science and technology. President Kennedy declared that we would place a man on the moon within a decade.

Nova University of Advanced Technology was conceived in response to the national agenda. In the mid-1960's, President Johnson launched the Great Society, which began to take effect in the late 1960's and continued into the 1970's. Nova University responded to the challenge of equal educational opportunity and minority success by taking education to the student. In the 1980's, in the new information age, Nova is responding by making quality education accessible to all individuals with the assistance of technology.

This essay, written by Dr. Stephen Goldstein, presents a broad sweep of Nova's twenty-five-year history. It is a macro view of what has taken place... Extract from Acknowledgement written by Abraham S. Fischler October 10, 1989